When the Bad Economy is Good for Research

Ad Age recently quoted Hyatt’s global marketing head John Wallis as saying “throw out your old algorithms.” Economist Chris Kuehl, keynote speaker at the annual MRA conference, said “market research is more crucial now than ever in terms of separating reality from speculation.” Many of our clients are telling us that research completed as recently as two years ago is irrelevant and possibly misleading. We are seeing economic driven aberrations in long term tracking studies. While consumers may eventually go back to their old ways, it is clear that many of them have altered their current behavior. These changes are likely to last at least a couple of years. Bottom line, fresh research is critical.

So in my opinion, this is great news for marketing research. Companies know they are vulnerable. They are starting to ramp up their marketing research activities. Segmentation studies, concept tests, price/value studies, brand image studies, and tracking studies are all needed from this fresh perspective.

Your thoughts?